Ameren Missouri Not Sweating High Power Demand

ST. LOUIS–(KMOX)–Ameren Missouri says it’s not worried about widespread power outages caused by the prolonged heat wave.

“We’re able to handle this heat, absolutely, and we’ve been handling it for a number of days now,” said Vice President of Energy Delivery Dave Wakeman.

Wakeman admits there have been “random” power outages, the largest affecting some 5,000 customers. But those he blames on routine equipment failures in the heat, not any overtaxing of the system.

“Sometimes equipment will fail when it’s stressed like this,” Wakeman said, “and so when these high temperatures come up and there’s an equipment failure, we’ve been making sure we restore power quickly and safely.”

The record one-day electric generation by Ameren here was 8900 mega watts set back in 2007. By contrast, Wakeman says Ameren Missouri was expecting to generate 8500 mega watts to meet demand Monday.